Tel Aviv street at night, 2011 (Photo by Mikhail Kryshen)
On Thursday, CAMERA’s Israel office prompted correction of a Fox News article which erroneously cited Tel Aviv as a metonym for Israel. The Dec. 2 article, “Behind the final Trump team push for Saudi Arabia to ‘normalize’ ties with Israel,” stated:
Yet Kushner’s ongoing bid for The Kingdom to strengthen its ties to Tel Aviv comes at a time when tensions with Iran – the archnemesis for both the Saudi and Israeli leadership – are accelerating, particularly days after Israeli operatives are alleged to have assassinated Iran’s key nuclear scientist.
Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, is Israel’s capital. Therefore, the journalistic practice of referring to a country by its capital calls for citing Jerusalem when referring to Israel.
Numerous media outlets have commendably corrected this very point in the recent past, including Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters and CNN in Arabic and English.
In response to communication from CAMERA, Fox has commendably amended the erroneous language. The article now rightly refers to “Kushner’s ongoing bid for The Kingdom to strengthen its ties to Israel.” Contrary to common journalistic practice, no note is appended to the bottom of the article alerting readers to the change.